NRCC chairman: 'Bullying' protesters won't hurt us in 2018

The rapid spread of town hall protests against House Republicans has some lawmakers quaking at the thought of reelection.

But Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio), who was just tapped to run the House GOP conference campaign arm, insists he isn't sweating the demonstrations. The National Republican Congressional Committee head is betting the protests won't hurt Republicans in 2018, calling agitators "a vocal minority… actively trying to build a movement" but failing.

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“Organic movements don’t happen 10 days into a new administration,” Stivers said during a recent interview, skeptical of the grassroots nature of what's happening. “It took the tea party movement months and years to get to that level of frustration.”

Stivers hypothesizes that protesters are organized by “paid individuals that are either associated with the progressive left or the Democratic party.” He predicted that the GOP base would revolt against them, giving Republican cover as they plow ahead with Obamacare repeal. And he blasted organizers for disruptions that are “not productive for anybody.”

"This so-called ‘resistance' is not asking for a constructive dialogue,” he said. "They want to yell, they want to scream, they want to cause a commotion."

Stivers' comments suggest Republicans will move to discredit the protest movement engulfing lawmakers. Indeed, several times during the 30-minute conversation Stivers accused protesters of showing up at district congressional offices unannounced, scaring staffers and making threats. He argued they’ve crossed the line.

But dismissing the the protest movement as manufactured outrage could come at Republicans' own peril. If Stivers is wrong and Republicans don't take what's happening seriously, his members in swing districts could find their seats in serious jeopardy. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is already trying to capitalize on the anti-Trump anger, highlighting embarrassing town hall exchanges and accusing those who haven’t hosted town halls lately of ignoring constituents.

One gauge of the existence or strength of a backlash will be a handful of upcoming special elections to fill House vacancies left by President Donald Trump’s new Cabinet members. Voters will head to the polls this spring to find replacements for Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (Georgia), Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (Montana) CIA director Mike Pompeo (Kansas) and Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney (South Carolina).

While all four of their districts have been regarded as conservative strongholds, Stivers admits that Democrats could play in at least one, if not two, of them. Trump won Price's affluent north-Atlanta district, packed with college-educated Republicans, by just 1 percentage point. Demcorats could also compete in Montana, where 30-year-old Obama political appointee and ex-Hill aide Dan West just declared his candidacy.

“If something gets very out of whack in one of these, then ... that would be a sign" of a political backlash, Stivers said.

In the meantime, Stivers is he’s building a campaign apparatus to avoid the bloodbath that typically awaits the president’s party in the first midterm election. Rather than just playing defense, he's looking to identify Democratic seats that Republicans could flip.

Trump is a key part of Stivers’ 2018 strategy. House Republicans expect the president to help raise millions at a March NRCC fundraiser. Trump is also likely to campaign with members in their districts next year, Stivers said.

“He’s going to get our base excited in a lot of districts,” Stivers said, noting that Trump won more than 220 of the 241 GOP-held districts.

It’s a stark contrast from last cycle, when pro-Trump Republicans such as Rep. Lou Barletta (Pa.) boycotted their dues owed to the NRCC because the campaign arm sponsored ads touting lawmakers standing against Trump. Conservatives also wouldn’t pay their annual fees because they felt NRCC focused too much on moderate members.

Stivers ran for the NRCC post on a platform of unifying the fractured Republican conference and has already had some success doing so. In January, for instance, Barletta gave the NRCC $100,000, in what he told POLITICO was a nod to Stivers’ efforts to help all types of Republicans. Other Republicans who resisted paying dues in the past have also begun to pony up, a key reason the NRCC last month raised a record amount for an off-cycle January.

The loyalty has been spurred in part by an institutional change Stivers made at the NRCC: The campaign arm for the first time will financially support Republicans in primaries if they’ve paid their dues and are facing a tough challenger.

“We need to be one team and to have one fight,” Stivers said.

Unified or not, the NRCC is in for a tough election cycle, in no small part because of an energized liberal base. Led by Indivisible, the group inspired by the success of the tea party, progressives are storming town halls and inviting members who haven’t appeared in public to their own makeshift constituent events.

They’ve caught the attention of local newspaper editorial boards around the country, who’ve encouraged their respective members to meet more frequently with unhappy constituents.

Stivers said he and other members are “not interested in going some place just to get screamed at.” He predicts that progressives will “overreach by shouting people down,” and by “busing people in.”

“They probably guaranteed Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s re-election for as long as he wants to run in Utah because the people that shouted him down didn’t live in his district, and the people who live in his district didn’t like that,” Stivers said, referring to the Utah Republican's contentious town hall in mid-February. “For as angry and upset and loud as these people get, they’re motivating our base, too.”